It is well known that passengers experience discomfort in multiple seat arrangements where a single central armrest is shared by two persons. Sharing the central armrest can lead to dispute and discontent. The problem is particularly acute in the economy section of a passenger aircraft. Economy seating seeks to maximise the number of seats in a given area, thus shared armrests are necessarily very narrow.
Typically, where a single shared armrest is provided between two seats, only one person is able to use the armrest at any given time. Known single shared armrests used in economy-type seating have limited surface area for supporting an arm due to being narrow.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,959,231 to Lee attempts to solve the problem by providing a shared armrest having two support surfaces which are spaced one above the other in the same horizontal plane. FIG. 1 of the drawings shows a front view of the stacked support surface armrest of Lee, in use. One of the drawbacks of the stacked support surface armrest of Lee is that the upper arms of the persons sharing the armrest need to overlap for effective use of the armrest. One person may thus be required to have his/her torso slightly forward and the other to have his/her torso slightly back so that their upper arms can overlap in order to have their forearms comfortably placed one above the other on the two vertically spaced armrest surfaces. This arrangement may be uncomfortable for the passengers. Another possible drawback is that the person resting his/her arm on the lower support surface may not be able to have his/her forearm supported centrally. In some embodiments the stacked support surface armrest of Lee has a leg or web extending from the lateral edge of the lower support surface to the lateral edge of the upper support surface. The leg or web may interfere with a central position of the forearm on the lower support surface.